


knighthood

by chiarascura



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 11:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18619975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiarascura/pseuds/chiarascura
Summary: brienne's experiences with knights.brienne/jaime subtext.





	knighthood

**Author's Note:**

> i have got and asoiaf mixed up in my head at this point, so this is kind of a mix of both. my bad.

The first time Brienne saw a knight, the course of her life changed. Through the thick warped windowpanes of a hall overlooking the keep courtyard, figures moved around and the clang of metal on metal rang distantly. Details blurred, but the outlines of men moved back and forth with training swords as they practiced. The Septa had instructed her to remain in place and continue embroidering, and Brienne followed orders. A cheer went up outside and her thoughts circled again to the fight. Abandoning all thoughts of her Septa and her womanly duties, Brienne leapt up and raced through the castle. 

A traveling hedge knight sparred with some of her father’s men. He was tall and wore shabby leather armor. His sword slashed through the air, his body danced along the dusty ground, and Brienne’s heart sang the way it did when traveling bards entertained. 

She made her way to the front of the crowd standing around the ring, memorizing the way tall knight went through the motions, knocking away each of her father’s soldiers like they were nothing. 

Brienne wanted that. She didn’t want to do her mother’s dances, this was her dance floor. She knew in her bones that she wasn’t meant to wear dresses or embroider or look pretty. She crept forward again, until she stood a step ahead of the rest of the crowd. Some around her muttered under their breaths, but she ignored it. 

After the last man had been knocked away, the hedge knight tossed his head back and laughed. Bright and open and joyful, despite his plainness and shabby armor. He turned in a circle, looking for his next opponent with good humor. His gaze landed on Brienne, and she felt the jolt in her soul. Under his gaze, she stood taller, pushed her shoulders back and planted her feet in the ground. 

“You, there. Boy. Want to try your luck?” 

She nodded and stepped forward. Her face burned at being called _boy_ , but it didn’t hurt. Not the way it hurt when people called her _girl_. Whispers erupted around her, and once again she ignored them. She had plenty of practice at that. She picked up a wooden sword from the ground, and it shook in her grip.

“There now, hold like this.” The knight demonstrated the proper way to hold a sword, and Brienne drank in the information, eager and excited. She adjusted her stance as he instructed, followed his every command.

All of her worries, her grief at the death of her mother and her siblings, her shame of not being a good lady, her pain of being mocked for her ugliness, all of it fell away. In that moment, she was the sword and the sword was her. 

As they trained, the crowd dispersed from around them, all joy at seeing a mock tourney dissipating. Brienne deafened her ears to the mutters and whispers, and focused every thought on this moment. 

\--

The second time she saw a knight, it wasn’t really the second time. Lord Selwyn had agreed that Ser Goodwin, master-at-arms of Evenfall Hall, would train Brienne as long as she continued her tutoring with the Septa. Her father didn’t like her affinity for men’s pursuits, but he allowed it.

So, the second time she saw a knight, one that didn’t hail from Tarth or Storm’s End, they weren’t truly knights, either. 

A crowd had gathered in the great Hall. Her father sat at his dais, face stern and projecting strength. He wore the mantle of the Evenstar as he looked down at where the prisoners knelt chained before him. 

Brienne had heard the gossip travel across the island. Her father oversaw few trials, mostly community disputes about land or property, since the island was removed from the mainland and most thieves or robbers wouldn’t make the trip out here. This year, while the realm was at peace and summer stretched out before them, some men took advantage of the calm to fill their own pockets. The three men kneeling before her father had robbed a village nearby. They used their status as knights of the kingdom to force their way into the village leader’s home, eat his food, and take his gold. They had been captured on their way out and brought before her father for judgement.

Brienne watched from her spot at the side of the hall, her status demanding her presence. The dress itched, and every time she squirmed, the Septa pinched her thigh. She scowled, but remained alert. 

The prisoners also scowled, though theirs were more fearsome and promised retribution. Men and women came forward before her father to witness their crimes. Each testimony further added to the tense atmosphere, and the anticipation of the crowd thickened the air.

They were disgusting and shameful, and yet they still called themselves knights. One man, slightly taller, with dark hair and one eye, spoke out of turn. “Lies, all of them liars. We’re knights of the realm, and we ride under King Aerys’ banner. We submit only to his judgment!” 

Lord Selwyn sighed. “That is an incorrect assumption, prisoner. You have committed crimes against the crown on my lands, and I pass judgment. I see no true knights here.”

Brienne knew what true knights were. Her father invited every traveling bard to spend a night at their table, and she listened to every story. Knights dedicated their lives to good deeds, protecting the innocent, defending righteousness. They submit themselves to justice if they erred, and sought redemption for their mistakes. 

These men… they screamed and howled as they were taken from the great hall towards the newly-built gallows. They raged against the injustice as it was their right to steal and pillage. They shouted that they were above the smallfolk, they weren’t subject to the same laws. 

How could men such as these call themselves knights? 

\-- 

The first time she met Jaime Lannister, she hated him. Vile, traitorous, dishonorable wretch of a man. From the moment she saw him in the Riverrun dungeons, dead drunk and laughing at Lady Catelyn, she knew he was no true knight. He was the Kingslayer. 

His hazy eyes slid across her like she was invisible. His stench assaulted her as she closed the manacles around his wrists and ankles, and pulled him to stand upright. He could barely even stand on his own feet after being held in dank cells since the Whispering Wood. 

He improved not at all as they began their travel to King’s Landing. He called her wench instead of her name, he made fun of her looks, he did nothing but mock and wheedle and snark. The Lannister scion knew he would be saved by his father’s riches or his brother’s scheming, and he would go right back to his despicable ways. She loathed his self-righteousness and confidence that despite all his evil deeds, he would live a life better than most. 

A true knight would never mock someone for how they looked. She knew she was undesirable as a woman, and had no ladylike qualities in her at all. The shame of these failings sometimes choked her, but she would not let the Kingslayer see that. He did not deserve to know anything about her, as he only deserved justice for his crimes.

He was no knight. 

\--

The first time she truly saw Jaime Lannister, he was naked in the baths at Harrenhal. She leapt to catch him as he fell, just before he slipped under the water and drowned. Her first impulse thought was that he deserved to die here, ignobly. However, after his confessions about King Aerys, and the wildfire, and his apology to her… 

The guards helped her lift him from the water and place him on the stone floor. They brought clothes for both of them, and skittered away as she took responsibility for her ward.

The pink gown was made for someone with smaller shoulders and larger breasts. Shame and heat crept up her neck, blush filling her face as she dressed herself in the manifestation of her lack of womanly qualities. She tried to push the inadequacies aside, and focused on helping Jaime dress.

His head drooped on his neck, and his limbs stayed limp with exhaustion and fever. His stump was covered in thin dirty linen, but her eyes kept returning to it. He had spoken out for her, protected her from the Bloody Mummers as much as he could. Yet the way he had done it, by promising a reward of sapphires, had been a lie. Did protection outweigh the lies? Did the evil of murdering a sovereign king outweigh the protection of a whole city? What did it mean when the Kingslayer blamed her for letting Renly die, then apologized? 

The conflict ate at her soul. Knights were honorable and just and righteous… and also selfish and manipulative and criminal. How could all these things be true?

\--

The night she became a knight… Jaime said, “Any knight can make another knight. I'll prove it.” 

Brienne was no longer the untried young girl that had believed all the bards’ songs. She had seen horrors of war, knights being shameful and wicked and unjust. She had seen the Kingslayer repent and change. She knew that things weren’t always as they seemed, and a terrible deed is sometimes just, where a merciful one can be wrong.

Jaime said, “Kneel, Lady Brienne.” 

The faces of those who had mocked her throughout her entire life flashed through her head. All the men who had wanted to beat or rape the manliness out of her, all the women who had scorned her for not playing their game, the knights her father had judged who desecrated everything a true knight stood for. Jaime’s face, even, before Harrenhal and King’s Landing and Winterfell, when he was dirty but still golden and beautiful, the twin of his sister in body and in spirit. 

Looking at them men around her, Brienne smirked, halfhearted and for show. She searched for the signs that this would turn into another pretense. If she stood and accepted, would she suddenly become the butt of the joke again? _Stupid Brienne, you really thought you could be a knight?_ The smirk slid off her face. 

She saw none of the things she expected. Podrick’s gaze was gentle, sympathetic. Only he and Jaime knew her true feelings, her deepest desire to be accepted. She looked away, swallowed hard, unable to keep the eye contact with someone who knew her. Tyrion, Davos, and Tormund each seemed solemn enough, none of the excited anticipation of blood in the water on their faces. 

Jaime said, “Do you want to be a knight, or not?” 

She turned back to him, a bubble of emotion rising in her chest. He extended his sword, pointing at the spot that he expected her to kneel. His easy confidence, arrogance that he too knew her, and had no doubt that she would do as he said. A knight could make another knight, even if that knight was an oathbreaker and a Kingslayer and a man despised by the realm.

Brienne had never known what it was like to be _known_. For someone outside of herself to understand what she wanted, what she was about, how she navigated the world, and to accept those things. And she was afraid.

Were true knights afraid?

Here, in this warm room, with Jaime’s soft eyes locked on her, it changed. 

She rose, knelt, and rose again. 

Ser Brienne of Tarth, knight of the seven kingdoms.


End file.
